To Baghdad on business

Yuri Shafranik held talks with ministers and the President of Iraq

Russian oil workers are rushing to gain a foothold in Iraq . Yesterday it became known that the head of Soyuzneftegaz, Yuri Shafranik (Minister of Fuel and Energy in the 1990s), was the first of the leaders of large companies to visit Baghdad. His visit took place on November 24-25, during which he met with all key ministers of the Iraqi government, as well as with the country's President Jalal Talabani. The results of the trip have not been reported, however, most likely, the negotiations were about gaining access for Soyuzneftegaz to the Rafidain oil field, which the company claimed back under Saddam Hussein.

Yuri Shafranik is the co-chairman of the Russian-Iraqi cooperation commission, and therefore in 2000-2003 he was a frequent guest in Baghdad. However, his company, unlike LUKOIL, did not manage to obtain a deposit in this country - several months before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Mr. Shafranik signed with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil only a memorandum of intent to develop Rafidain (reserves were then estimated at 100 million tons ). However, he did not have time to translate the cooperation into a firm contract.

Nevertheless, Mr. Shafranik tried to establish a dialogue with the leadership of Baghdad in both 2003 and 2004. Moreover, he did not even rule out partnership with any of the foreign companies, including British and American. However, in Iraq, the government started reforming oil legislation, and therefore there was no talk of selling any fields. The country's parliament still cannot pass a new law - there are too many contradictions in it.

Nevertheless, Russian companies are gradually beginning to develop territories where the situation is more or less calm. First of all, we are talking about Iraqi Kurdistan in the north of the country. The Alfa Group structure began operating there, which entered into a production sharing agreement under which it will develop four blocks of the Howler field near Erbil (the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan).

However, in the south and southeast of the country, where Rafidain and West Qurna-2 are located, the rights to which LUKOIL is trying to defend, the terrorist attacks have not yet stopped. Nevertheless, after the visits of the Iraqi oil and foreign ministers to Russia in the fall, contacts between Russian oil workers and the Iraqi authorities became quite intense. It was recently reported that a meeting of the Russian-Iraqi intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation is planned to be held in December, to the meeting of which, in particular, the management of LUKOIL has been invited. And before that, Vagit Alekperov was invited to Baghdad, but it was not reported whether he accepted the invitation.

Yuri Shafranik, meanwhile, independently traveled to Baghdad along with the Vesti film crew. “We want not only Russian oil and gas companies to work in Iraq, but also those that work in agriculture and electricity,” Jalal Talabani said at the negotiations. “They will find complete mutual understanding here and will work in the interests of both countries , in the interests of both peoples, between whom long-standing strong ties have developed. We hope that this meeting will serve to further develop our relations. We expect that immediately after the work of the intergovernmental commission this will happen: Russian companies will begin to operate in Iraq in the near future."

It was not possible to find out the details of the meeting yesterday - Mr. Shafranik flew on a business trip to Uzbekistan.

Nikolay GORELOV